Fresno County adds 472 new coronavirus cases — but hospital numbers appear to be dropping
Fresno County added 482 new positive patients to what is now 21,798 cases of the coronavirus since the pandemic began in March, state health officials reported Wednesday.
Health officials did not add any deaths to the total of 205. Of its infected, Fresno County has seen 9,172 recoveries.
The central San Joaquin Valley surpassed 50,000 total coronavirus cases on Tuesday. The grim milestone included cases across Fresno, Kings, Tulare, Madera, Merced, and Mariposa counties. Across the region, a total of 626 deaths have been reported.
Of the total, 445 were hospitalized across the region on Wednesday. The number has slowly come down from the peak of 617 hospitalized patients on Aug. 6.
A total of 233 people were hospitalized in Fresno County on Wednesday, the most in the region.
The statewide total of patients hospitalized with the virus fell below 5,000 on Monday for the first time in nearly two months. Then, they jumped back over that mark with 86 additional patients Tuesday. The total changed minimally Wednesday, with a net drop of just three for a total of 5,058 hospitalized cases. The hospitalization total had spiked in late July to nearly 7,200.
The ICU total is also down about 20% in the past three weeks, to about 1,590 as of Wednesday from an all-time high over 2,000.
California clears up COVID-19 data backlog
California added 6,164 new lab-confirmed cases in a Wednesday update from the California Department of Public Health. The state on Tuesday had reported its smallest daily increase dating back to late June — not counting those impacted by a recently resolved statewide backlog issue — with only 4,636 new cases. Both are well below a peak observed in late July.
To date, California has recorded 638,831 total lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 11,500 coronavirus deaths during the pandemic, reporting 181 fatalities Wednesday morning, according to CDPH data.
The state has worked through its backlog of COVID-19 cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials confirmed Monday, giving a clearer picture of how coronavirus activity is trending. The state’s watchlist also resumed adding and removing counties at the start of this week now that the data issue has been resolved. A total of 40 counties were on that list Wednesday afternoon.
COVID-19 cases in the central San Joaquin Valley
Tulare County reported 118 new cases and two new deaths, which makes for a total of 12,836 and 208, respectively, since the beginning of the pandemic.
Merced County’s two new deaths pushed the total to 97. Another 58 positive cases also drove that total to 7,229.
Madera County tallied 40 new cases, which brings the total to 3,236. No new deaths affected the total, which is 47.
Mariposa County has reported four new cases to reach 69 total. The county has two deaths since the pandemic began.
Kings County reported a new death and 62 new cases to reach 68 total deaths and 5,631 cases, including people in nursing homes and inmates in Kings County facilities.
More than 5.5 million people in the country have tested positive for COVID-19, including more than 172,000 fatal cases, according to The COVID Tracking Project and Johns Hopkins University CSSE.
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 4:33 PM.
